Twenty-six
The Afterlife, Van Dyck’s home
“And that’s the whole story?”
“Aye.” Peter gazed at the pale-eyed, mustached man before him.
They had known each other before, but not in this place.
It was almost like meeting one’s father and discovering he hadn’t aged but you had.
Peter was older now than Van Dyck, for Van Dyck had died at little more than forty.
In the Afterlife, one remained one’s dying age until being reborn.
Peter wouldn’t have come—it pained him to humble himself here—but he must stop Campbell Stratford, no matter what it took.
How dare she meddle in his life, after using him to get to Van Dyck.
“Well, I’m very sorry for your trouble, Peter. Very sorry. Especially after all that you’ve done for me.” Van Dyck pulled at the narrow beard that ran from his lip to his chin. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“There are two things, actually.”
“Name them.”
“First, please don’t tell the Guild of my visit to you today.”
Van Dyck looked at him curiously but nodded. “And the other?”
“I need a letter.”
“Peter, I don’t have my letters here. You know that. None of us does.”
“’Tis a new letter.”
“A new letter?”
“Aye. Get a quill.”
* * *
Peter had constructed his plan carefully, and to have Mertons refuse this simple request was infuriating.
“It’s not that simple, Peter.”
“The hell it’s not.” Peter pounded his fist on the long marble worktable in the Executive Guild’s Time Lab, and Mertons jumped. “I told you, I need only a few hours.”
“Aye, I’ve been hearing that for two days. But while I’m glad to see you are sensible of the impact such an act could have, it doesn’t change the fact that travel into the future is strictly forbidden.”
“But not impossible. Mertons, I have done exactly as I’ve been asked, and at no little cost. The Guild must allow it.”
A blue button flashed on the wall next to the door’s window.
Mertons pressed it and the latch on the door opened.
A security guard stuck his head in the door, and Mertons waved him away.
Peter eyed the ax, rope, and hand and foot cuffs that hung within arm’s length of the table.
They clearly had a high regard for security in the lab.
“It cannot be done,” Mertons said, lowering his voice.
“Traveling into one’s past is risky enough.
Traveling into the future is a recipe for disaster.
The models for the future are directional at best. We cannot know what will be affected.
Hell, we can barely place someone at the correct destination, let alone ensure that the variables remain stable. ”
Peter stole a glance at the locked case in the corner.
A book, a scope, and a box of lenses sat on a counter in front of a stool.
The whole thing looked as if it belonged in a tent at some village fair, though he knew from firsthand experience how well it worked.
He looked at Mertons and with a loud, resigned sigh lowered himself into a chair.
“You’re right,” Peter said, nodding. “The risk is too great. In any case, I’m sure it’s not as simple as traveling backward. The Guild may have standardized many things, but even they could not have standardized that.”
Mertons laughed. “Are you joking? Have you never heard the story? Well, of course, you wouldn’t have, but it’s a good one.
This is, oh, ten, fifteen years ago. A time accountant by the name of Robert DeLaney crashes a party at the university one night and meets the girl of his dreams. She professes a deep love for the work of a poet named John Keats.
DeLaney, being a man of limitless determination though not ethics, quickly offers to introduce her.
This is before the era of security cards and aura scans, of course.
He brings her to the Time Lab and sets her up at The Book of Years.
” Mertons inclined his head toward the book in the locked display.
“And just as I did with you, Peter, he opens the book to 1962.”
“That magical year that is the focal point of all time travel?”
“Yes. As I said, it is a mystery time scientists may never understand. DeLaney opens the box of spyglasses, and after checking whether she wants the pre- or postconsumptive Keats, begins to fashion the scope into a proper configuration. Being a romantic, she chooses postconsumptive, and DeLaney dutifully selects the ‘141’ lens to get her the hundred and forty-one years she’ll need to move from 1962 back to 1821, the year Keats happens to be dying in Rome.
Then he sits her in front of the spyglass, turns for a moment to pontificate on the magnificent intricacies of time travel—you know the verbosity of some men when it comes to this topic—and when he turns back, the spyglass is on the chair and she’s gone. ”
“She’s left on her own,” said Peter, who knew that once you had the right lens it was simply a matter of pointing it at the page in the book.
“Well, that’s certainly what he assumes. And being the gentleman he is, he gives her a good thirty minutes to get her fill of Keats’s sentimental imagery and wheezy coughing. Then he refocuses the lens to snap her back, and—lo and behold—nothing happens.
“He tries a second time and third time. Still nothing. So he goes back to 1821 himself and takes the glass, for, of course, it’s the only way we know of to trigger a return on your own, though it’s less dependable, which is why the two-person method, with a traveler on one end and a lensman on the other, is preferred. ”
Peter gave him a dry smile. “Or perhaps it’s preferred because it ensures the person who’s traveled stays where they’ve been sent until the Guild is sure the job has been done.”
Mertons cleared his throat. “In any case. DeLaney finds Keats, plasters on his chest and a flannel around his head, but no sign of the girl. And no matter what he does, he cannot induce Keats to confess any knowledge of having seen her. Stumped, DeLaney decides to wait there to see if she shows.
“But”—Mertons held up a finger—“at the same time, back in the lab, an early-rising colleague arrives, sees the case open and the lenses gone, and calls the director. The director rushes over and is just about to rouse the Executive Guild from their beds when DeLaney gives up and returns. Horrified at being caught, he explains the situation as well as his motivation, hoping the confession, delivered in a man-to-man tone, will be enough to keep him from losing his job. Well, DeLaney’s smart.
The director laughs, certain the girl will arrive eventually, and even offers to give DeLaney the morning off in order to capitalize on the opportunity he’s set up for himself. ”
Peter made a fastidious noise. “And?”
“And nineteen hours later, after much wringing of hands, examining of equipment, and the utter implosion of the Guild, the girl reappears. Except,” Mertons said, clapping his hands, “it is the director’s daughter!
DeLaney is fired, the director is suspended, and the Guild takes control of the lab.
They restructure the entire security process.
Even odder, though, it turns out the girl, who arrives bald and in tears, complaining of being pursued by a band of plethicords—”
“Plethicords?”
Mertons gave him a shrug that suggested he’d asked himself the same question.
“It turns out that while DeLaney had his back turned she’d flipped the glass to gaze through the other side, the side without the padded eyepiece, and instead of transporting herself a hundred and forty-one years before 1962, she’s hurled herself a hundred and forty-one years beyond it. ”
“The future.”
“The future.” Mertons nodded. “A wild and untamed place. Though who’d have thought it was a simple matter of looking through the other end?”
Peter stroked his chin. It was quite an illuminating story—more illuminating than Mertons had probably intended.
And since Peter, like Mertons, perfectly understood the verbosity of some men when it came to time travel, he said, “I see your point about the risk. Tell me, though, given the outcome, what do you think are the implications for the future of, well, traveling to the future?”
“The implications?” Mertons clasped his hands behind his back and paced along the long row of windows with the air of a philosopher.
“There are a number of them to be sure. First, there’s a certain amount of ethical debate that will be required before we could reasonably attempt it again, even with trained personnel.
Second, the success of the simple reversal of the lens suggests straightforward rearrangements of other time tube paraphernalia may yield similar results.
And third…” He laughed a private laugh. “A team of time accountants determined nothing significant had been changed, but even now I can tell you that if it were me being sent forward, I’d be prepared for a plethicord wearing a blond wig—What the… ?”
Peter snapped one end of the cuff around his ankle and the other around the leg of the granite table.
The color drained from Merton’s face. “Oh, Peter, you mustn’t.”
“I’m sorry. If there was any other way…” In three strides, Peter was at the case. He lifted his heel and shattered the glass. Instantly an alarm began to ring. He reached in and undid the lock, and the door swung open. “I promise to return as soon as I finish.”
Mertons essayed a heartfelt speech on the risks and costs, most of which was lost on Peter, who picked through the lens case to find the one that would place him on her doorstep.
Someone hammered at the door. Peter figured he had only a moment before a battering ram was contrived.
He found the lens, laid it backward in the mount, and ran to Mertons.
“Would you care to be punched?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A plausible defense, Mertons. I’m trying to help you.”
Mertons returned to his theme. “The Executive Guild will be furious. They hold all the cards. Peter, think about your future.”
The first boom sounded at the door. “Dammit, Mertons, shall I punch you or not?”
“This isn’t a joke. You will be brought before the examining board. They’ll start by rescinding your—”
Peter threw a reluctant fist into Mertons’s nose. Over the outraged rage howl, he yelled, “Crumple,” and with the sound of hammering crashes at the door, he returned to the book, put the wrong end of the lens to his eye, focused on the page, and disappeared.